The Hubris of the Production Guy

A.C. produces our proposals—printing, binding, preparing CD versions, shipping, and so forth.

At yesterday’s team building session, we each had an opportunity to speak (among other things) about what our co-workers could do to make our individual jobs easier.

A.C. said that when he produces a proposal he expects to replace pages that are smudged, printed off kilter, blurry, etc. He then added, “But I don’t expect to spot errors when a proposal reaches production.”

Well, excuse the rest of us for living, A.C.!

First, there’s no such thing as an error-free proposal. That’s one reason we have the page-by-page book review step just before proposals are queued for shipping.

Second, and more important—much more important—is the fact that for a variety of systemic weaknesses, we can’t get a handle on version control. Specifically, despite the best quality control/review efforts of editing, graphics, desktop publishing, and proposal coordination, proposal managers and senior reviewers can—and do—go into many documents and screw them up after they’re designated as “final.” And there is no time for any of the rest of us to review post-final revisions.

It must be quite a burden being perfect, A.C.

Keys to the Kingdom

“Version control” refers to a system designed to control access to edited documents to ensure that only editors can make changes to them as they move toward finalization. This is usually done through limiting access rights to the online file management system. In other words, once files reach a certain point in the production process, version control ensures that writers can’t go back into a file and screw it up by introducing any of a variety of errors.

An analogy would be to put former Wall Street executives in charge of the current federal financial bailout effort; you know, like the fox guarding the hen house. Such is the case in my office.

Despite ongoing protestations from my co-workers and me, our manager will not enforce the much-needed version control by restricting access rights for anyone above her in the company hierarchy. This includes several VPs and senior VPs who also function as proposal writers. The result is that my editing is regularly nullified, and proposals go out the door with multiple errors that were introduced post-editing.

The absence of effective version control is one reason why many editors retain copies of every file they work on. CYA!